It had never been like this with Eberhard! Her mind fled her body and she clung to the hand that had seeled her. The hand that had denied her sight she tasted with her lips—turned her head to catch his finger with her tongue. Adrienne almost screamed when he took that same finger and placed it inside the slick heat between her legs. "Fly for me, sweet falcon," he urged, cupping one of her heavy breasts with his hand and licking its puckered crest. He teased her mercilessly, nipping her gently, touching her everywhere.
His lips returned to claim hers with desperation sired of a hunger too long denied. A hunger that might never relent. His kiss was long, hard, and punishing, and she reveled in his unspoken demands. A whimper escaped her when the pad of his thumb found the tiny nub of heat nestled between her folds, and Adrienne's head dropped back as a burgeoning wave cast her up and up. Yielding to his fingers, his tongue and lips, she sacrificed the last vestige of her restraint.
"Adrienne," he whispered hoarsely, "you're so beautiful, so sweet. Want me, lass. Need me like I need you."
She felt the heat of a place with no name she'd ever been taught—luring her deeper.
Adrienne struggled to say the words she knew must be said. The one word that she knew would free her. This legendary seducer of women—oh, how easy it was to understand just how legions had fallen before him! He was so good at it. He almost had her believing that it was for her and only her that he hungered. Almost a fool again.
But that was why they called them rogues. Lotharios. Don Juans. They applied the same skill and relentless determination to seduction that they applied to the art of war—to conquests of any sort.
Resurrecting the tatters of her defenses, she steeled her will against his advances.
The Hawk was lost. Lost as he'd been since the moment he'd laid eyes upon the bewitching lass. No matter her strange fancies risen from some secret and terrible past. He would discover a way to erase all her fears. The things Grimm had told him signified nothing. With love he could overcome any obstacle in time. His lady hawk she would be, for now and always. He treasured her yielding to his hands, savored like the rarest delicacy the sweet honey of her lips, trembled at the thought that she would one day feel for him as he felt for her. With her it would never be like it had been before, empty and hollow.
Nay, with this lass he would mate for life. She had no eye for the beauty the other women had so adored. This lass possessed secrets of her own. Horrors of her own. Depth of her own. All in all, a rare lass indeed. He was sinking, sinking into her depths… the kiss deepened ferociously and he felt her teeth graze his lower lip. It maddened him beyond control.
"Oh!" she breathed, as he nipped her silken neck.
Emboldened by his success, he breathed the first tentative words. He needed to tell her; needed her to understand that this was no game. That he had never in his life felt this way, and never would again. She was the one he'd been waiting for all these years—me one that completed his heart. "Ari, my heart, my love, I—"
"Oh, hush, Adam! No need for words." She pressed her lips to his to silence him.
Hawk froze, rigid as an arctic glacier and every bit as chill.
His lips went still against hers, and Adrienne's heart screamed in agony. But how much worse would it scream if she became a fool again?
His hands dug cruelly into her sides. They would leave bruises that would last for days. Slowly, very slowly, one by one, his fingers unclenched.
She had said his name!
"The next time you say Adam's name, lass, is the time I stop asking for what I already own and start taking. You seem to forget that you belong to me. There is no need for me to seduce you when I could simply take you to my bed. The choice is yours, Adrienne. I bid you—choose wisely."
Hawk left the broch without another word, leaving Adrienne alone in the darkness.
* * *
CHAPTER 14
adrienne should have worked up an appetite. She'd spent the rest of the day after the falcon incident wandering every inch of the bailey. Was this day ever going to end? she wondered. She must have walked twenty miles, so she should have burned off some of her pent-up frustration. Even her elite guard had looked a little peaked when she'd finally consented to return to the castle proper and brave encountering the Hawk.
Dinner offered fluffy potato soup, thick with melting cheese and spiced with five peppers; a delicate white fish steamed above a fire in oiled olive leaves, garnished with buttery crab; asparagus seared to perfection; plump sausages and crisp breads; puddings and fruits; lemony tarts and blueberry pie. Adrienne couldn't eat a morsel.
Dinner was awful.
If she glanced up one more time and caught the look of death the Hawk had fixed on her, she would have to stuff a fist in her mouth to keep from screaming.
Adrienne sighed deeply as she spooned at the soup everyone else seemed to be relishing. She pushed it, poked at it, smashed the fluffy stuff. She was busily rearranging her asparagus into neat little rows when the Hawk finally spoke.
"If you're going to play with your food, Adrienne, you might give it to someone who's truly hungry."
"Like you, my lord?" Adrienne smiled sweetly at the Hawk's plate, which was also laden with untouched food.
His mouth tightened in a grim line.
"Is the food not to your liking, Adrienne, dear?" Lydia asked.
"It's wonderful. I guess I still don't have my appetite back—" she started.
Lydia sprang to her feet. "Perhaps you should still be resting, Adrienne," she exclaimed, shooting an accusing look at her son. The Hawk rolled his eyes, refusing to get involved.
"Oh, no, Lydia," Adrienne protested quickly. "I am totally recovered." No way she was going back to the Green Lady's room and playing invalid. Too many strange memories there. Tonight she planned to find a new room to sleep in; there certainly wasn't a shortage in this massive castle. She was rather looking forward to exploring the place further and selecting a room of her own. "Really, I'm fine. I just ate too much at lunch."
"You didn't eat lunch," Hawk said flatly.
"Oh, and who are you to know?" she shot back. "Maybe I ate in the kitchen."
"No you didn't," Tavis added helpfully. "I was in the kitchen all day, I'll say. Plumb forgot to eat is what you did, milady. A time or two I've done the same myself, I'll say, and the hungrier I get, the less I feel like eating. So you better be eating, milady. You'll be needing your strength back and I'll say that again!" An emphatic nod of his cheerful head punctuated his decree.
Adrienne stared at her plate, a mutinous flush coloring her cheeks.
Lydia glared at Tavis as she came to stand protectively beside Adrienne's chair.
"I find I'm not all that hungry myself," Lydia said. "What say you and I go for a walk in the gardens—
"With the brute force trailing behind?" Adrienne muttered, glancing at Hawk beneath lowered lashes.
"—while my son gets some beans from the buttery and brews us a fine cup of coffee for our return," Lydia continued, dangling the bribe as if she hadn't been interrupted.
Adrienne sprang to her feet. Anything to escape his eyes, and coffee to boot.
Betrayal shone in the Hawk's eyes now.
Lydia took Adrienne by the hand and started to lead her to the gardens.
"I'll brew the coffee, Mother," Hawk said to their backs. "But see to it that Maery has Adrienne's things moved to the Peacock Room."
Lydia stopped. The hand holding Adrienne's tightened almost imperceptibly. "Are you quite certain, Hawk?" she asked stiffly.
"You heard her. She is completely recovered. She is my wife. Where best to guard her?"
"Very well."
"Where's the Peacock Room?" Adrienne spun on her heel to face him.
"On the third floor."
"Will I have it to myself?"
"As much of it as I don't use. 'Tis the laird's chambers."
"I am not sleeping with you—"
"I don't recall asking you to—"
&
nbsp; "You oversized, arrogant, conceited jackass—"
"Really, Adrienne, my son is none of those things," Lydia chastened.
"No reflection on you, Lydia. I really like you," Adrienne said politely. Politeness decamped abruptly as she glared at the Hawk. "But I'm not sharing your bed!"
"Not quite the topic to be bandying about over the dinner table, I'll say," Tavis offered, scratching his head, a flush stealing over his cheeks.
Hawk laughed and the dark rumble vibrated through her body, leaving her nipples erect and her heart hammering.
"Wife, you will share my room this eve if I must have you tied and carried there. Either you can suffer that humiliation or you can come willingly upon your own two feet. I'm not much concerned with how you get there. Just get there."
Mutiny rose up in her breast, threatening to steal her very senses. Dimly she heard the door behind her open and shut and caught the scent of a cloying perfume that turned her stomach. Whatever the scent was, it reminded her of the orphanage; of attics and mothballs and days the nuns had made her scrub the floors and dust the heavy dark furniture.
"Lover!" came the cry of feminine delight from behind her.
Lydia's hand tightened painfully on hers. "Olivia Dumont," she muttered almost beneath her breath. "Dear heavens! I doubt I'll see this day through sane."
"Olivia?" Adrienne echoed, her eyes flying to the Hawk's.
Olivia, the Hawk thought gloomily. This day was rapidly running the gamut from bad to worse. He refused to meet Adrienne's questioning gaze. How dare she call him Adam in the midst of their lovemaking and then ask questions about another woman? She had no right. Not after she'd said his name.
Fury consumed him every time he thought about it.
Adam.
Images of his hands ripping apart the smithy flesh from bone comforted him for a moment.
Then desolation overwhelmed him. Now he had two problems: How was he going to make Adrienne want him? And what was he going to do with Olivia?
Fix Olivia up with the smithy?
That brought a grin to his face, the first in a while.
And naturally, Adrienne misunderstood it, thinking his smile was meant for Olivia, as did Olivia. As, it appeared, did his mother from the scowl on her face. Grimm cursed softly beneath his breath. Tavis shook his head, muttered a heated oath, and stalked from the heavily laden dinner table.
"Olivia." Hawk inclined his head. "What brings you to Dalkeith?"
"Why, Hawk," Olivia purred, "need you ask? I've missed you at court. You've been away from my… side… for far too long. I surmised I'd simply have to come collect you myself if I wanted you. So," she finished with a flutter of lashes and a blatant come-hither look, "here I am."
Hawk realized belatedly what a stupid question he'd asked as Adrienne fixed Olivia with a chilling gaze. Hawk knew from experience that Olivia could answer any question—no matter how innocent—with a loaded innuendo, but he'd shut the unpleasant memory of her antics from his mind the moment he'd returned to Dalkeith. It occurred to him that he would do well to resurrect those memories quickly. It would be unwise to forget Olivia's penchant for troublemaking; the asp was in his nest now.
Olivia's breath caught audibly as she stared at Adrienne.
"Greetings, Olivia. Have you come to speak with my husband?"
Momentarily free of Adrienne's wrathful gaze, the Hawk preened. Husband, she'd said. And she'd said it possessively. Perhaps there was hope after all.
"We've spoken quite the common language in the past," Olivia drawled. "A sort of wordless communication, if you catch my drift. Just the kind of talk the Hawk likes the best."
"Put her in the Peacock Room then," Adrienne spat over her shoulder as she tugged Lydia out the door and slammed it behind her.
* * *
CHAPTER 15
"the king may have released you from his service, but I would never dream of releasing you from mine. You've serviced me so well in the past, I swear, I'm quite spoiled." Olivia wriggled closer on the low stone bench in the courtyard resting the curve of her ripe hip against the Hawk's muscular thigh.
Lydia had returned alone to the house a scant quarter hour after she and Adrienne had left, shooting a smug smile at her son where he reclined at the great table with the infernal Olivia. Coffee forgotten, the Hawk had quickly steered Olivia to the gardens to see what his wife might be up to. When his mother looked at him like that, well, the woman had a mind like a well-oiled catapult, deadly in the attack.
So he had strolled Olivia through the vast gardens at a breathless pace, his eyes peeled for the guards trailing his wife. Nothing. Time and time again his eyes had been drawn northward, to the flickering rim of firelight at the edge of the rowans.
"May I assume we'll entertain each other tonight as we used to, Hawk?" Olivia's warm breath fanned his cheek.
Hawk sighed inaudibly. "Olivia, I'm a married man, now."
Olivia's laugh tinkled just a bit too brightly, reminding Hawk that she was a woman who delighted in stealing another woman's man. The more difficult the man was to obtain, the happier Olivia was. Hawk was well acquainted with her peculiar game; she enjoyed hurting other women, crushing their dreams, breaking their hearts. Hawk suspected it was a revenge of sorts; that once a woman had taken her man, and she'd never gotten over it—had become a bitter, destructive woman instead. Once he'd finally understood, he'd felt almost sorry for her. Almost.
"She's Mad Janet, Hawk," Olivia said dryly.
"Her name is—" He broke off abruptly. He mustn't give Olivia any ammunition. He took a careful breath and rephrased. "Her middle name is Adrienne,'tis the one she prefers." He added coolly, "You may call her Lady Douglas."
Olivia's brow rose derisively. "I shan't call her lady anything. The whole country knows she's mad as a rabid hound. I hadn't heard, however, that she was bearable to the eye."
Hawk snorted. "Bearable? My wife is exquisite by any standards."
Olivia laughed shakily, then her voice firmed sarcastically. "Well, and lah-de-dah! Could it be that the legendary Hawk thinks he's in love? The roue of endless women thinks he might stop with this one? Oh, do give it up, mon cheri. It's nauseating. I know what kind of man you are. There's no point in affecting elevated sensibilities we both know you don't possess."
Hawk's voice was icy when he spoke. "Contrary to your expectations, I am not the man I was at James's court. You don't know anything about me—other than the illusions you've chosen to believe in." He paused a heavy moment to lend emphasis to his next words. "Olivia, there is no king here to order me to accommodate you, and I'm never going back to James's court. It's over. It's all over." The moment the words were said, Hawk's heart soared. He was free.
"That's all it was? You accommodated me?" Olivia demanded.
"You knew that." Hawk snorted derisively. "I turned you away a dozen times before you went to James. Did you convince yourself that I'd had a change of heart? You know exactly what happened. It was you who petitioned the king to make me—" Hawk broke off abruptly, catching the glint of a silvery-blond mane in the moonlight a few yards from where they sat.
Adrienne approached, her arm tucked in the crook of Adam's elbow, a splendid crimson cape thrown over her shoulders, the silk billowing sensually in the gentle evening breeze.
"Olivia." Adrienne inclined her head.
Olivia snorted lightly and possessively grasped the Hawk's muscled arm.
"Join us," the Hawk said quickly, ignoring the sudden pinch of Olivia's nails.
The thought of Adrienne walking off into the darkness with Adam did dangerous things to his head. Hawk frowned as he realized that it was likely as dangerous for Adrienne to be exposed to anything Olivia might say or do.
He certainly didn't want the conversation to continue where it had broken off—not in front of Adrienne—without an explanation from him. He knew he had to gain control, but he had no experience with this type of situation. He'd never had an ex-mistress try to provoke trouble with h
is wife because he'd never had a wife before, and he'd certainly never been entangled in an encounter so rife with hazardous potential. His concern that Olivia might say or do something to hurt Adrienne unbalanced his customary logic.
Fortunately and unfortunately—depending on how he viewed it—Adrienne declined his offer. Relieved, Hawk resolved to pack Olivia off at the earliest moment possible then reclaim his wife from the smithy and have a good long talk with her.
"We wouldn't wish to disturb your cozy tete-a-tete" Adrienne demurred. "Bouche-a-bouche is more like it," she muttered half under her breath.
"What did you just say?" Olivia asked sweetly. "Tu paries francais?"
"No," Adrienne replied flatly.
Olivia laughed airily and studied her. "You seem to be a woman of no few secrets, Janet Comyn. Perhaps you and I should have our own tete-a-tete and exchange a few of those intimacies. After all"—her gaze wandered possessively over the Hawk—"we share much in common. I'm sure you'd be fascinated to hear of the Hawk's time at James's court. He was quite the man about—"
"That would be lovely," Adrienne interrupted her smoothly, terminating the flow of Olivia's poisonous words. Her insides were already in a turmoil; if she heard much more, she'd either scream or cry—she didn't know which, but she did know it wouldn't be at all ladylike. "Some other time, however, Olivia. I quite have my hands full right now." She wrapped her hands around Adam's bicep, imitating Olivia's clutch on the Hawk. Pressing closer to Adam, she let him steer her away.
"Smithy!" Hawk finally found his voice. He'd listened to the women's conversation in frozen horror, struggling to conceive an entree into the risky repartee; but once again Adrienne had unwittingly spared him by silencing Olivia before the Hawk had resorted to stuffing his sporran into her scheming, lying mouth.
Beyond the Highland Myst Page 12
